REVIEW

Daily Drum Warm-Ups: 365 Exercises to Develop Your Technique — one for every day of the year! Covers essentials such as: rudiments, patterns, weak hand builders, triple strokes, finger control, odd-time and much more. Drummers will improve their speed, dexterity, accuracy, coordination, and dynamic control, while developing their stylistic repertoire.

The accompanying CD includes all 365 warm-up exercises, plus 20 foot ostinatos that can be used as play-alongs, and five brush examples. It's also enhanced so Mac & PC users can adjust the tempo without changing pitch.

The book begins with a track listing of the 78 audio tracks on the CD, including performance examples of all the exercises organized by week for 52 weeks, plus 20 foot ostinatos and 5 brush technique examples.

Andy provides a generous introduction (8 pages) where he explains why warming up is important and ways to warm up. He also shares 12 Essential Skills (types of exercises with photos) which include:

Rudiments, Hybrid Rudiments, and Simple Patterns

Accent Patterns

Moeller Technique

Weak Hand Builders

Rhythm Buiders

Rudimental Recipes

Combos

Buzz Strokes

Triple Strokes

Finger Control

Famous Stickings

Odd Time

The final portion of the Introduction covers various tips for using Daily Drum Warm-Ups, including the use of bare hands on any available surface, playing with brushes using an assortment of movements and techniques, and foot ostinatos with or without pedals.

Each daily exercise is numbered, organized by week, labeled by type from the list of 12 Essential Skills, with a suggested performance tempo range, and a time stamp for the start time of the audio example on the CD.

The final pages of the book include music notation for the 20 foot ostinatos, notation of the brush technique accent pattern, and a drum music notation guide for those that may not be familiar with reading music notation.

The Daily Drum Warm-Ups book is laid out well, clean, easy to read and designed to work well on a music stand or flat on the table — nothing more aggravating that a cluttered book or one that won't stay open to the page you are working on.

The warm-up examples on the supplemental audio CD, although notated with a repeat, are only performed once through. I would have liked to hear the warm-up demonstrated with the repeat, giving a clear overall understanding of the exercise, both in sound and feel, as one makes the various notated transitions. Often times the biggest challenge in an exercise is in the repetition, so hearing each exercise with two complete passes would most beneficial. The Amazing Slow Downer works well and is a nice feature. The interface is weak on looks and layout, however, this is a free app from a third-party; if you want more lights-bells-whistles you'll need to purchase the full version. NOTE: My initial review was not favorable with respect to the CD simply because the disc was defective. Hal Leonard sent me another book/CD package which worked perfectly and resolved all of the issues I had with the audio CD.

Overall I found Daily Drum Warm-Ups to be great resource, working in tandem with Andy Ziker's other workout book, Drum Aerobics. Educators, students and anyone interested in having a structured warm-up routine already organized for them, with something new to work on each day, will find this book extremely helpful; a valuable addition to the library.